The Russo brothers fired up a rainy SXSW London on Tuesday afternoon.
AGBO co-founders Anthony and Joe Russo were joined by their partner, former chief creative officer at Epic Games Donald Mustard, at a headline session titled “Building Artistic Universes Without Borders” at the Shoreditch instalment of the major festival and conference event.
The directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame began by lauding the record-breaking box office work of Obsession and Backrooms filmmakers, 26-year-old Curry Barker and 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who have become the latest cinematic saviors of horror. “If you just follow your own ethos, I’m fascinated by Obsession… [It’s] viciously funny, right? In a very dark way, made for less than a million dollars, and will be the highest return ever for a movie,” said Anthony Russo.
“That’s an explosively disruptive moment… [The state of the film business] is in a very, very complicated place, but I think that’s a good thing,” Anthony Russo added. “I think it’s a good thing, because Gen Z are aging into becoming not only the dominant audience, but the dominant story today.”
It wasn’t long before, of course, they came onto the hotly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday, which is set to premiere this December. Anthony Russo said that even though after Endgame there was a strong sense of closure — and the men were admittedly “exhausted” after those seven years leading the franchise — it was an idea from writer Stephen McFeely that “reignited” their desire to return to the MCU. “He came up with this creative idea that reignited [the project], and I can’t talk about that creative idea, because it’s the basis for Doomsday, but that [idea] all of a sudden broke the skies open for us, and we saw all new kinds of possibilities with that idea.”
